Fifty years ago, when the city of Saigon fell and the military intervention of the United States in Southeast Asia came to an end, President Gerald Ford faced an option: many antigompuists from southern Vietnam feared forced relocation and political persecution at home, and Loode Home, and Lookende to Home, and lounted. But the American public was bitterly divided by whether to accept such a large influx of refugees. At that time, Lesley Stahl reported on the mail “too hostile” received in Capitol Hill on the subject; A letter, from a component of Nebraska, said: “They only bring diseases, corruption and apathy.”
The US Unemymy rate. Uu. It sat at almost 9 percent, a maximum after World War II. For many, bringing homeless Vietnamese coasts to the US coast seemed meaningless.
The New York Times 
But President Ford saw the issue in marked moral terms: “There are tens of thousands of other intellectuals, teachers, teachers and opinion leaders who have supported the United with the alliance and the obligation of alliance,” he said.
Ford ordered several aerial steps to extract 130,000 refugees and asylum seekers from South Vietnam. A bill that assured the help of relocation and financial assistance was fiddled in the law.
And cornered a coalition of religious groups, southern democratic governors and labor leaders to ensure their home and employment.
© Corbis/Corbis through Getty Images 
At first, many of the new refugees trusted public assistance and low payment. But in the years that followed, the majority won employment and their dependence on government help decreased. They became owners of small businesses and pillars of the community … large and small taxpayers for the American tapestry. Among them: federal judges, a Pulitzer winning novelist and even an Oscar -winning actor.
“My trip started in a boat,” said “Everything everywhere at once,” Star Ke Huy Quan. “I spent a year in a refugee camp, and somehow ended here, on the largest stage in Hollywood.”
Ford’s decision to welcome thesis refugees was not just the right thing, it was intelligent. He realized that in a nation of immigrants like ours, force derives in much of diversity. His leadership showed compassion, political courage and moral clarity … qualities that our leaders could use more than ever.
CBS news 
For more information:
History produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
See also: